Beauty Indebted
by green-eyed blonde
Summary: Draco has been watching Harry. Originally a school assignment. Very AU. Very slight, implied slash.


**A/N: All right, so, originally I wrote this when a teacher assigned us the task of writing a short story. Then I realized that it was so vague you could probably fit anyone in there. So I changed a few tiny things, and voila! It's much darker and more dramatic than anything else I've posted on the site. Er…I hope you like it!**

**Beauty Indebted**

I thought you were beautiful. Stunning, really. The first time I saw you I was enraptured by you, almost as much as you'd have been had you seen me. I relished the way your soft black locks fell loosely around your eyes — brilliant bright green eyes that sparkled with passion and unbridled wit. Your slim figure always clad in classically handsome clothing of the finest quality, though you could barely afford to feed yourself. I liked your sharp, almost feminine features, never clouded with worry, but very often burning with excitement. Excitement for anything. Sharp banter full of sarcasm, the beauty of the arts, or even a simple touch would set your eyes ablaze. You were alight with a certain joie de vivre.

When I saw you for the first time, you were standing outside the theatre with a girl, your slender arm thrown casually around her shoulder, head thrown back in laughter. You exuded confidence, a sort of independence, which, ironically, attracted me endlessly to you. I was driven near madness with a horribly wonderful clenching infatuation. I wanted to watch you always, to drink up the vitality that surrounded you. The air that you'd breathed smelled of passion, tasted of life. To watch you was invigorating. And the best part was, you had a penchant for the night. Just like me. Although, my love of the night was brought about not by choice, like yours, but by survival instinct. Creatures like myself thrive in the sophisticated quiet and pregnant darkness that is the night. So I was thrilled when I discovered your fondness for what seemed to me my own personal setting. I watched every night as you left your flat and discarded your worries into the gentle breeze. I know how you adored this time alone you spent on the blackened pavement of the city, as the smoggy sweat-soaked heat of the day evaporated into darkness.

I couldn't watch you all the time, for I needed to feed. I could have taken you then, but at the same time, I couldn't have. I desperately wanted you, but I wanted to save you, as a child saves her favourite dish to eat last. I wanted to study you first, to wrap myself in your prancing, innocent love of life, before I took it away from you.

I watched you for years. To me, it was nothing, but to you…to you it was a veritable era in your life. I saw you growing and changing, both physically and emotionally. I watched your limbs lengthen and strengthen, watched your strides become more purposeful and self-assured. Your eyes grew sharper and your movements more finely tuned. I saw your emotional growth through change in the people around you, the jobs you worked. I saw you move out of your relatives' home and into the world on your own.

Your emotions were always so vivid, so real. I could always tell what had happened to you during the day by your demeanor in the youth of the night. But by the time you went home you were always calm. You were caressed and quieted by the soft shimmering silence brought by the moon.

I wanted to meet you, but I was afraid. Afraid that closeness with you would shatter my image of your perfection. What if I spoke to you, and some horrible blemish of your mind appeared on the flawless face of your beauty? I did not want you to be spoiled by me. I did not want to be disappointed and feel as though all of my love for you had been wasted. I adored you, perhaps more than you deserved. I'd built you up, lifted you on to a pedestal, and even the slightest touch from me could topple you over.

So, I admired you from a distance. Every sunset after I'd risen, I waited outside your apartment. I waited for that customary mad swing of the door, and your quick but cheerful paces; all but skipping into my sight. Occasionally you brought someone with you, a girl you were seeing, or a friend. But with someone or without, you always came. You went to a play, to a bar, or nowhere at all. You enjoyed the cooler spin of the earth, and I thrived in this enjoyment.

I usually had to tear myself away from you in order to feed. I would have lived off of your vital aura, but for the solid, unmovable logic of reality. I was a little bit shocked at how painful it really was for me to leave you. How had I become so dependent? Anyone else I saw during the night was dull and unexciting to me. If they were ugly, I was sickened by the sight of their grotesquely formed faces, and skin like death stretched tight across their noses. If they were beautiful, I thought how little they had in comparison to you, thought that they were probably vain and unfeeling, that their character besmirched their flawless shell. You had paled the world for me, so that the only thing that brought me joy was you. I felt you were mine. Mine alone to love and delight in.

The girl that you were with at this time was quite attached to you. I could see that she admired you to no end. But this did not worry me. I'd seen girls look at you like that before. I knew that you couldn't love her. She was ugly. She was dull. You were so much more. You were infinitesimal in your innocuous wisdom. You were breathing boldness embodied. You were wonderful, and she was not. How could you settle for her? There was no human on Earth as viciously vivacious as you.

You can imagine, then, my deep, speechless surprise as I gradually came to realize that you spent more time with this girl than you'd ever spent with another. Was she something special to you? I knew she was nothing, but you seemed to be utterly smitten with the creature. I never got to see you alone anymore, which was how I liked it best. I liked when you were alone because you were completely free. Your own thoughts reigned your features and your body, rather than those of another. Your own thoughts were much more brilliant to watch play over your face. The ever-changing expression and the dancing light in your eyes were absolutely thrilling to see. With her there, you were not nearly as animated. Instead, your movements were weighed down with a sluggish sleepy 'contentment'. Contentment is overrated. It is nothing. Contentment is not unhappy, true, but it is not happy either. Passion, excitement, fervor, anticipation, exhilaration; these were the emotions I wanted to see evoked in you, the emotions I wanted to feel through you.

You seemed to fall further and further into her crater of tedium and false love. You did not love her. You could not love her. You do not know what love is. I realized that you were not capable of handling the situation any more. She had clenched her stubby, motherly fingers around your beautiful slender throat. I hated her.

As she took hold of you, though, I saw you grow into your prime. Even with her cramping pressure, I knew you had reached your peak of perfection. Oh, how I ached to save you. I wanted to save you from time. Time would ruin you, and soon, if I did not hurry. You were falling into such grace and beauty that I thought unseen in the human world. I could smell that the climax of our story was coming. Imagine that. We had a story, all this time; a story of which you knew not. Well, I was about to make you eternal perfection—I was about to save you.

I was contemplating what would be our first meeting, slightly frightened at what I had to do. I was afraid to touch you. I was afraid, but I knew I had to do it. I had to grace the world with your perpetual presence. I had in my mind the basic plan, but still wanted a few more weeks to perfect it, and to steady myself. I had to be in the right frame of mind when I did it. One night, as I was walking with you, somewhat lost in my thoughts of your future, I saw you take your little pet to the riverfront. I was suddenly shocked as though by lightning as I saw you get down on one knee. I'd seen in you the past few weeks a sort of nervous energy, but it never occurred to me that it was about this— about the girl. I watched from a short distance. You confessed your 'love' in fumbling but nonetheless charming words. I saw her eyes shining with happy, idiotic tears. I suddenly felt a fiery rage balling up deep within my ribcage, then spreading to each of my limbs and into my head, pounding inside my eyes and wrenching my jaw in all directions. How could you do that to me? How could you place on her a ring, a symbol of eternal love? You know nothing of either eternity or love. You can't love anyone. I can love you, and that is it. I was suddenly consumed with an intense hatred. Hatred for her, for the look in your eyes. I did not like the way your eyes were distracted now, like no matter what you thought of for the rest of your life, most of your mind would still be on this girl. You would never be just you anymore; I would never see you owning yourself, controlling your own thoughts. I wanted to free you.

I shot out from the shadows, toward that girl who was blocking your mind from my sight. She should not have you. I grabbed her with supernatural speed and strength. I paused then. I couldn't bear to kill her in my usual manner, to bind her to me in that way. I was revolted at the thought of tasting her life, and her love for you. During my hesitation, the girl screamed — a hideous screech that scraped at my ears and took hold of my heart in a tight grip. You were frozen with shock. As the moment stilled, with the exception of the struggling girl in my arms, our eyes met for the first time. It was — forgive me for being cliché — electric. Your eyes will never cease to hypnotize me. I was excited to finally be the receiver of any of your tangible feelings, not just the interceptor. It did not even matter to me that it was horror, shock, and anger that filled the space between us. I shook myself awake, wrenching out of our quiet introduction. I turned my back to you, still holding the girl, and swiftly took out my pocketknife and slashed her golden throat. She stopped screaming and thrashing about as death claimed her body. I let her fall to the ground. You still did not move. I turned back to see you fall to your knees, the emotion welling up inside your chest. It was lovely.

I knew that I needed you now. I had not prepared to take you yet, but my burst of vengeful emotions made it necessary. I had killed your pet, and if I did not bestow upon you the gift yet then I knew I would have to watch your body implode with depression, and you would no longer be perfect. I slowly walked toward you. You looked up, eyes wide with fear and anger. I pulled you up from your knees, my icy hands reveling in the first feeling of your warmth. You were trembling. I was so close to you, your feelings were so much stronger. Usually I was quite a distance away from you, and yet I could still feel the passion for life emanating from you. To be so near to you increased the power of your emotions tenfold. You avoided my eyes, but I knew you were silently asking, begging, pleading with me. You tried to pull your hand from mine, but I held on tightly. You wanted to escape me, but your strength and courage had left you, flown off with my logic and self-control. I placed my long white fingers under your chin and turned your delicate face towards mine. As our eyes met yet again, I felt the same feeling as before. And I am sure that you were entranced with me, unwillingly. You did not blink as you took in my appearance fully — my sleek blonde hair, my icy grey eyes, my inhuman pallor, my sharp, surreal features. As you looked back into my eyes, you began to weep. The crystalline tears rolled silently down your soft, clear face. I pulled you into my chest in a deep embrace, stroking your hair as your crisis dripped onto my shoulder. After some time passed, or did not pass, I cannot tell, I pulled my face back slightly and revealed your long, graceful neck. I stared at the pale, unmarked flesh there. You would be mine, you would be the world's, for all of forever. I bared my fangs and slowly sunk them into your throat.

**A/N: Please review! **


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